Filthy People
by Desenchanter
Summary: Inuyasha is burdened by being a burakumin, a scapegoat group for all poor, and discontent people of Japan. Alone with nothing to live for until she came—the purest priestess, the only one to forgive him for his origins. InuxKik. M for safety. OneShot.


**Title: **The Filthy People

**Summary:** Inuyasha is burdened to live in 1955 Japan, unfairly born into the burakumin group that is _the_ scapegoat for all repressed, poor, and discontent people of the country. Alone with nothing to live for, nothing to hope he desired to end it all until _she _came—the purest priestess, the only one to forgive him for his origins. InuxKik.

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**I heard someone say, "Izayoi, what are you doing here?!" I could see the look on my always joyous, loving mother's face drain. Her perfect complexion paled as she turned to see a man who worked in my father's factory stare wide-eyed at her. Her eyes moved to me, her son, her little boy, her hands tightened around me until they were white at the knuckle before the weak smile that I'd grown to know so well over time appeared for its premier.

"How can you not know? That is Toashi-sama, the wife of the factory manager," one of the workers told him.

"What?!" He exclaimed in amazement only to be followed with envy laced scorn, "but she's an outcast. How can _she_ be of such high class? How can _she_ have such power?"

Those three god-awful words spread about the factory life wildfire, no, worse. She's an outcast. My mother, I didn't know what that meant, but I'd learn. Because… so was _I_.

So am I.

I was only six, my parents loved each other. It was bliss, I remember my mother telling stories of how my father begged her to marry him and him laughing and saying how true it was the entire time. I saw firsthand how happy they were until that damned day when that bastard that broke everything spoke out against my mother in front of everyone. I guess he was an old classmate of my mother's, she had distanced herself from being what she was... an outcast, a filthy person, a _burakumin_.

My father's attitude altered abruptly forever, I could hear the shouts throughout our home. My mother wanted him to be silent, not to allow me to hear, but he just shouted all the louder: "You deceived me! You will ruin everything, all my chances to further my career, my status! I want a divorce! I will have nothing to do with that that outcast child! He's not mine!"

The words stung me hard, my father—the only man my mother ever loved, was ever with—disowned me, spun lies around saying I was another outcast child, that my mother deceived him, that she was an adulteress. All believed it.

Nothing, I mean _nothing_, ever could scare me like the screams I heard that night from when my father burned my mother's upper arms and left leg with a red, steaming, hot tong. Disturbing her with marks that were always a reminder of the shame, the lost, the evil. That night he left, taking everything with him. My mother cried but held the rest in after that night, she worked so hard to raise me the best she could until she died only ten years later… I know it was because of some 'illness' but it wasn't. She died the way all of us do, the rejection, the emptiness, she lasted longer than most because of me.

School, I hate those memories, when my classmates that never spoke to me for anything but to ridicule me forgot their cups for lunch the teacher would lend them hers. When _I _forgot my cup the teacher said, "you are filthy, go home and get your own." When I had to get a job to support my dying mother I had to take employment exams like everyone else. I told the examiner the name of the village I grew up in and my mother's occupation and would always receive a failing grade. It was after a few more that I learned to hide my birth.

I am no different than everyone else. Everyone tells themselves that it cannot be helped, that the birth and race of my people—the outcasts—are different from theirs. We aren't. We aren't from a different race, we are not descendants of captives from war, from anything shameful. It was just because of the beginning of the Tokugawa period when the government set up the distinction of us below the four feudal classes. The warriors, farmers, artisan and merchants all needed someone to would forever be below them. A scapegoat for all the despair, anger, hatred, someone to blame for all their misfortunes, so the government was never to blame, so that they were never to be blamed for their own poverty, their own birth. It was alway us. It caught on and continued throughout the Meiji reform. Legally, we are not allowed to be discriminated against but... when had law ever mattered?

Even though my ancestors had never once committed a crime they were rounded up with vicious force and taken to the outskirts of town to live in poverty forever… _forever_. My ancestors were good people that never hurt anyone, so why? Why?

I hated life after my mother was gone more so than I did when she was around. She was all that made it bearable, work was hard to fine, food scarce, what did I have to live for? I took too may sleeping pills and for seven days moved between the world of the living and the world my ill-fated ancestors rested in.

I was as good as dead on the dirty streets, was that not where I belonged? I was filth, I had been told that my whole life, so was it not proper for me to die so close to the trash? Wasn't that right?

So why? _Why_? Did she come to me? Did she save me? Did she take me in to her holy temple? Nurse me to health? And let me stay even after I told her of my heritage?

My light, my hope, my dream, my everything. My flawless flower, she made me happy for the longest period of my entire life.

Her smile gave me hope, her laugh gave me light, her words gave me dreams, she was my everything. My flawless flower, she made me happy for the longest period of my entire life. I loved her, and somehow... someway, she loved me, too. She told me so, that one day we wondered the temple to sit under the sacred tree right after I gave her that calm of lipstick that my mother had left me... she had the sweetest, saddest smile upon her face as she clenched it in her hand.

I'll always remember that look as she turned to look at me, "Inuyasha-san, thank you."

"Kikyou-sama," I mused as she leaned towards me. Her eyes telling me what she had given upon on long ago, 'sama' she said was far too formal but she was like a goddess, a gift from the heavens so how could I not address her as such? Then, it was the most brilliant feeling in all my life... our lips met, they lingered there before she pulled away pink in the cheeks.

"I am so sorry," she sped as she tried to get to her feet but I reached out and pulled her back to me, she stumbled and landed in my lap, I wrapped my arms about her and looked her square in the eye. She was the only one that let me do that, everyone else told me I was _filth_ that I couldn't do such a thing but she allowed it... with love in her beautiful bark colored orbs.

"Don't be sorry," I whispered as she lifted her hand to my cheek, "I don't want you ever to be sorry for..."

"I love you," she hushed me with her lips once more. A priestess and a burakumin, who would have thought?

That night was the greatest one of my entire life, the one I would cherish to the end of my short days. The night we mingled, meshed, I tainted her... and she purified me.

So, what is it about us? Are we just all unlucky, are we doomed to despair and depression? To a dismal death? Is that why the gods took her from me?

No… I can't blame the gods for what they did… what they did because of _me_. If I had never walked into her life they would have used her as an 'example' of what happened to those that dared accept my kind. Kikyou... it was my fault.

I am filth...

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**A/N:** For ANTH 360 I had to read this really good book titled _As the Japanese See It: Past and Present_ complied and edited by Michiko Y. Aoki and Margaret B. Dardess (I recommend reading it) and came across the stroy One Woman's Outcry which is a letter written in 1955 by a woman from the burakumin. I was amazed by the letter, I don't need to get on a soap box or anything but I really wanted to write about it so here I am. I really recommend this book if you are interested in Japanese culture from 1970s and backwards.

I changed it to a One-Shot because I think it's better that way.

Hope you enjoyed, please review :)

Thanks for reading.


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